From Passions to Emotions The Creation of a Secular Psychological Category [Paperback]

A significant and original contribution to the ongoing debate about emotion and rationality.Emotions are everywhere today, their importance obvious to all. Yet until two centuries ago 'the emotions' did not exist. In this pathbreaking study Thomas Dixon shows how the emotions came into being as a distinct psychological category, displacing such concepts as appetites, passions, sentiments and affections, all of which had preoccupied thinkers as diverse as Augustine, Aquinas, Hume, and Darwin. From Passion to Emotion is a significant and original contribution to that debate about emotion and rationality which has preoccupied western thinkers across many disciplines in recent decades.Emotions are everywhere today, their importance obvious to all. Yet until two centuries ago 'the emotions' did not exist. In this pathbreaking study Thomas Dixon shows how the emotions came into being as a distinct psychological category, displacing such concepts as appetites, passions, sentiments and affections, all of which had preoccupied thinkers as diverse as Augustine, Aquinas, Hume, and Darwin. From Passion to Emotion is a significant and original contribution to that debate about emotion and rationality which has preoccupied western thinkers across many disciplines in recent decades.Until two centuries ago the emotions did not exist. Thomas Dixon reveals in this study how emotions came into being as a distinct psychological category. They replaced such concepts as appetites, passions, sentiments and affections, which had preoccupied thinkers as diverse as Augustine, Aquinas, Hume, and Darwin. The book is a significant original contribution to the debate which has preoccupied western thinkers across many disciplines in recent decades.Acknowledgments; 1. Introduction: from passions and affections to emotions; 2. Passions and affections in Augustine and Aquinas; 3. From movements to mechanisms: passions, sentiments and affections in the Age of Reason; 4. The Scottish creation of 'thlCØ